Grant Writers?

Xopher · Apr 17, 2006

Hi there,

I was wondering if there are any grant writers out there who'd be willing to share with me some of their life experiences that related to them coming to their current profession, business, hobby, cause, or however they would describe it. Was there a college major that helped you become what you are today? A previous job? A moral cause?

It's been an intellectual interest of mine of late, and yet I've been struggling to find out much on it aside from websites either praising or belitting the "Grant Writing for Dummies" books. So really, anything provided that could help learn about some of the finer points of the this (as it would appear to be at first glance) rather mysterious profession would be very much appreciated.

Please feel free to PM or reply to this thread.

Thanking you in advance,

Xopher

(PS. I'm not sure if this is the right board for this thread, so if it's not I'll be happy to re-post it elsewhere. Thank you!)

ideagirl · Apr 18, 2006

I was a grantwriter for a few years. My majors were French and creative writing. What got me into grantwriting was simply knowing people in academe who needed a grant written (a guy I knew literally said to me, "Hey, you're a writer, right? Can you help us write this grant?"). What kept me in the field (until I stopped to go to law school) was that I love working for a good cause--for me, it's hard to even get motivated for anything that's not a good cause.

Xopher · Apr 19, 2006

Your choice of major sounds really interesting--also a nice precursor to law school I'd imagine. So, as you said, it was really the fact that you were doing something to help others that got you into it and kept you with it?

Would I be right in assuming it's an experience you'd repeat if you could?

ideagirl · Apr 20, 2006

Xopher said:
it was really the fact that you were doing something to help others that got you into it and kept you with it? Would I be right in assuming it's an experience you'd repeat if you could?

Yeah, helping improve the world was the main motivation. I also liked writing all different kinds of grants (I was primarily freelance) because it meant getting to know lots of different fields--I had to learn about the field to understand the project I was writing a grant for. I especially liked teaching grantwriting, because every semester I'd send twenty or so more people out into the world with a greater ability to write grants and therefore a greater ability to improve the world. I enjoyed it, but one of the reasons I got OUT of it is because my ability to help was limited by the fact that often people don't bring the grantwriter in until very late in the process--so they present you with a badly-planned project and ask you to make it sound good! They want a spin artist, but I would rather be involved in the planning from the beginning, or at least work for people who have good planners working from the beginning, so that when it's time to write the grant it doesn't NEED to be "spun" to sound good.

Grant Writers?

Xopher

ideagirl

Xopher

ideagirl